


stickly, sickly sweet

by apenora (OceanPenguin)



Series: 'Til the End of June [4]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: College Apps in the US, Other, Unhealthy and Stressful Culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-14 16:49:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11787336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OceanPenguin/pseuds/apenora
Summary: Real, like the skin on the back of your hand and the blue of the sky.





	stickly, sickly sweet

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, this fic stems from a personal experience which needs a background if it's going to make any sense at all.
> 
> Unlike most other countries, applying to college in the US doesn't entail taking just one test. In the US, colleges want to know you as a person, which means that you get to write lots of essays about yourself, answer questions meant to discover your personality, take a bunch of different tests, and turn in school grades and extracurricular activity lists. It's a long, hard process, especially if you're aiming for those top schools. Attitudes vary throughout the country, but there are particular places where college applications are the biggest thing in a high schooler's life, and it's usually on the coastal areas.  
> Thoughts, questions? I'll try to answer them as best as I can in the comments if you guys have them. 
> 
> Since colleges have to look at diversity and funding, and lots of top public schools don't have the money they need, these schools tend to take in more out of state or international students since they pay more, which is horrible for in-state students. Since going to an out-of-state school is just as expensive as going to a private school, many in-state students have to stand out from the competition because they can't afford college otherwise. There are noticeable differences in the achievements of students who go to the same college just within four years of entrance. 
> 
> It's a pretty stressful process, all in all, but going through it really makes you learn a lot about yourself as a person.

You hate college applications like you hate Chloe Bourgeois - they're both hard to tolerate and they leave a sticky, sickly sweet taste that coats the inside of your mouth. 

And - you know it's for your own good, that you're molded into something that's artificial and sweet and cute and nice and - and - they're doing their job to sell you, really. Sell you to the people who are in charge of these admissions, sell you as someone who's driven and creative and determined, and those are all true, they really are, you know that, you're the one who chose those characteristics to show off  - but, in the same breath, you want to be  _real._ Show the pain you went through when you realized that your classmates view you as nothing more as a joke, show the long hard hours working on the lab bench every day, pipetting the shit out of those samples.

_Real,_ like the skin on the back of your hand and the blue of the sky.  _Real,_ exactly the way you cannot be. 

It's not the worst of things, by any means. You think that being rejected by your crush hurts more, but that's a distant hurt and it's been healed long ago, and although the fire faded from your eyes the first month it built up again. There's a fire, you know there's a fire in yourself, reaching for the stars and pulling and pulling and you - you know, have long accepted, that you'll only settle for the best.

You could have avoided all of this if you just settled. Just settled because you  _can,_ you're almost definitely the top twenty in your school, you know, you  _can go_ to a college in the third, fourth tier and be given the red carpet treatment, and those safety schools you signed up for will take you. Almost every place in the country will take you, but you just had to aim so high you've nearly killed yourself for it. 

Who the hell takes so many advanced courses in the school year? Who mixes history and English? It's a school legend  _to not take_ those two classes together, but you didn't listen, did you? No, you took it, and you got through it, and you've sacrificed so, so much for it.

But you know you'd do it again, and that's what makes you turn back to the computer screen and type in the introduction to your one of your many essays: 

_He’s a cursed beast with the nature of a gentle sprite. It’s Loup Blanc -_

Your cursor blinks at you, a gentle reminder to continue. 

You do. 

It's college app season, you are Marinette Dupain-Cheng, and you will lay your candy-coated self on a page.

You're going to go places. You just know it. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts, questions? I'll try to answer them as best as I can in the comments if you guys have them.


End file.
